Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  Jun smiled. “A good suggestion.” He looked around the group. “Other ideas?”

  Ho stood upright and shook his head. “Standard assault on a ship. Go by the book.”

  “Indubitably.” Jun replied.

  “The only catch will be getting to the ship.” Cryne added.

  It was just three days until their expected visitor finally arrived. A Floxian long-ship jumped into the sector one million kilometres from the pair of mines and stopped dead in space for several hours, checking that the coast was clear. It wasn’t. The old Darjk freighter was lurking in a perfect position for its sensors to detect the jump, then give an exact location of the uninvited ship to the bridge.

  Jun quickly gave final orders. Ho and Lo, Cryne and Has, and Mils and Jun would form the three strike teams, utilise three of the four shuttles available, and conduct their assault on the ship as soon as it docked at one of the mines. Systa K was unconscious, and Standish was still recovering from her wounds on TKM 44 and her armour was too severely damaged to use again, so she was to mind the ship and act as she saw fit. She had two heavy cannons mounted on the top and bottom of the hull slaved to the pilot's chair, and the freighter to use as a battering ram if need be.

  Standish accompanied the strike package as they prepped for launch. The shuttles had been warmed up, and all the avionics and flight controls had been checked by at least one other operator. She watched as everyone readied their weapons and extra kit in their navy and gold tiger-striped armour. The combination of colours might not have been the most tactical, but they did look handsome.

  A final check of the tracking systems confirmed that the unmarked and unlisted long-ship was headed to RBM 45, the mine inside the centre of the giant asteroid. That one factor might tilt things in their favour. They just had to wait for the ship to enter the large tunnel that ran down to the mine, where the team knew that sensors and communications would be spotty, then slip in behind them, board the ship and take the crew down.

  “Time to go.” Jun announced. His blast shield was still up as he gave his final instructions to the team. “When we get into the tunnel, check your spacing, we don’t want to make easy targets for these guys.” He looked at Standish. “You’re in command of this ship. Once you deem it safe, get her up, and move her over to the mouth of the tunnel. Give us the green light when you’re set.” He looked at the other five operators and nodded to them, a silent suggestion that now was the time for them to get into their shuttles and ready themselves. Once Cryne, Mils, and the others were out of sight, Jun stepped closer to Standish and put his gloved hand on her shoulder. “If something goes wrong, and we are killed, you know that this ship can’t make it back to Killious, so I expect you to do the honourable thing and avenge us.”

  Standish took a deep breath. “There is no chance that ship escapes.”

  Jun nodded. “To your post.”

  Standish turned about and jogged slowly back to the bridge. The bridge, a place that was hugely important to any activity on any spacecraft, was like something out of one of her nightmares. It was odd for the thought to run through her mind, but once Standish had sat down in the flight chair and looked around the old, worn space. She felt a shiver, and uneasiness, a foreboding. The blood from Systa K had all been cleaned up, but something about the bridge didn’t settle well with Standish.

  It might have been the poor lighting or the fact that all the panels had been in service for so long that they all looked tired and in need of replacement. Maybe it was the dullness of the colours in the space: grey, some rust coloured browns and not much else. Even the lights behind the panels were dim and gave off just enough illumination to remind you that they weren’t dead yet.

  Perhaps the one saving grace of the level of decrepitude in the cockpit was the natural leather that covered the flight chair. A rare thing in these days of war and austerity, but through her jumpsuit, she could tell that the leather was soft and supple. Running her hands over the armrests, she closed her eyes for a moment and enjoyed the sensations running through her palms. Every little rip in the leather, every raised feature was there for her senses to indulge in. The years of sweat and blood that the chair had soaked up, all the adventures that had been witnessed from this chair. And Standish knew, somewhere, in the back of her mind, that this was this ship’s last rodeo. If a ship couldn’t jump or slip, then it had little use other than an inner-system transport, and that need wasn’t required in the AB 79 system.

  Standish might not have had her armour on, but she had full access to all the communications chatter that was going on between the operators. The three shuttles with the assaulters cleared the old freighter without issue and started their approach course.

  “Moving off.” It was Jun, and it sounded like he was whispering into the armour’s comm unit.

  The freighter had been positioned on a section of an asteroid that was nearest to RBM 45 and had a clear line of sight on the massive tunnel that led to the mining facility, giving Jun and his team the shortest distance required to cross to reach their target.

  Standish knew that every second of exposure time was a severe threat to the team. The dinky shuttles that they had been given didn’t have much in the plus column, but they were small and capable of getting the team from the freighter to the mine, or the Floxian long-ship. Standish knew that Jun could alter the strike plan until the last moment if necessary.

  Standish brought up the bridge’s holo-display system which was rudimentary at best but could show the area immediately surrounding the Darjk freighter, including the three small dots that appeared on display. Once the Floxian long-ship had slipped into the massive tunnel that led to the RBM 45 mining facility, there was a sense that they were in the clear. The long-ship didn’t drop sensors or drones at the mouth of the tunnel, allowing the strike team an unopposed approach.

  Once the team had dropped into the giant shaft, the strike team was not going to be able to contact Standish and vice versa.

  In her mind, Standish had an idea of how long it should take the team to reach the mouth of the tunnel, then make their assault down the deep shaft until they either assaulted the ship or the loading docks. Standish thought that the safer bet was the ship, once that was out of play, the team would have control of the situation.

  And like that, the waiting began. The uncertainty of what was unfolding out of sight. Standish liked to think that her team was outstanding. She knew that the powers that be at Dynamic Operations thought the team was good, but the fact remained that on any given day, the team leader could make a fateful decision or move that cost them everything.

  Standish didn’t have any facts, but there was something in the back of her mind that kept telling her that once the mission clock went past thirty minutes, the game was up, the attack had failed, and the entire team was under duress or worse, dead. Otherwise, they would have made contact, let her know that the long-ship was secure, and all was well. While radio comms were down, they could have sent a drone or a probe out to make contact with her.

  If her assessment was correct, that left her with two very distinct and different courses of action. She could use the freighter as a weapon and drive it into the long-ship with all force available, possibly removing the threat to the mining installation, but that idea didn’t settle well with her. Sure, it was a nice idea to stop the individuals stealing ore from these facilities in the middle of nowhere, but she knew that that course of action risked the lives of her teammates if they were still alive, including her own.

  That raised the question of whether her team was alive or dead. There was a chance that they had been detected on their run down the tunnel of the mine then eliminated. Perhaps they had made contact with the villains who were stealing from the installation and then defeated them. There were a million permutations as to what could have transpired once they had crossed the threshold and dove into the tunnel, but after silence for this long, it was time for Standish to take action.

  Sitting back in t
he pilot's chair, Standish considered her options. She could take the remaining pod and follow the previous teams down into the shaft, but that risked meeting the same fate as the first assault. The other option was much less subtle, take the freighter into the shaft and make a run at the bottom. Standish knew that at the bottom of the shaft there was a large mining facility with an unknown Floxian longship docked at it.

  If her team had been jumped, she needed to expect that the crew or operators of the ship at the bottom of the shaft could be expecting some form of secondary attack. Standish ran her hands over the worn leather seats and considered her options. It was time to go back to her final exam at Rescue Tech school. She needed something totally unexpected. She needed an option that wouldn’t be considered in a million years by whoever was down in that tunnel.

  After realising that she needed a show-stopper plan, she started to think over the assets that were available to her. Her armour was too damaged to get back into. That didn’t help. She had a wide variety of weapons at her disposal. And while those might make a loud boom, they weren’t the answer to the bigger question of how to get down where the action was without being killed first.

  There were a few more minutes of thought until she remembered that she had her Rescue Tech skin suit available in her pack, and with that piece of kit, she formulated a plan that was certain to attract attention.

  Twenty minutes later, and still without a word from anyone on the strike team, Standish was ready to execute her plan. She had pulled on her Rescue Tech skin-suit, checked that it was fully operational, then topped it off with her tiger-striped D-O helmet. Standish took a data-pad and attached it to the underside of her left forearm and attached a tracker and mapping system to her left forearm. In addition to her fighting knife, pistol and rifle, she armed herself with two explosive spider charges, and a micro-missile system mounted on the top of her left forearm, loaded with three high-explosive smart missiles.

  Fully geared up, Standish checked that Systa K was securely battened down in the cargo hold. She couldn’t guarantee that her teammate would survive the attack, but at this point, she didn’t have anywhere else to leave her. Once K was tied down inside her medical containment unit, Standish went to the bridge, and plotted a course into the tunnel, with instructions to move at best possible speed. Standish was able to slave the control for the ship to her wrist datapad, but she knew that any interruption in that feed would leave the old freighter flying dumb.

  Giving her kit a final once-over, she knew that it was now or never. The longer she hesitated, the higher the risk to her team. It didn’t matter that her body was still hurting like hell, she had to act. Satisfied that her gear was ready, she made her way to the top deck, and climbed into the airlock, closing the hatch behind her. Once the lock was depressurised, she opened the exterior hatch and climbed out onto the hull, shutting the hatch behind her.

  Standing up, she looked over the length of the ship that was stationary on the surface of an asteroid near the target rock and waited for the auto-pilot that she had prepped to engage. Kneeling, Standish faced the front of the ship, and waited, trying to calm her nerves. She was operating in the dark, unaware of what was happening with her teammates, but she knew that decisive action was the only course left to her.

  When the old freighter pulled up from the surface of the asteroid, it did so smoothly, and Standish only really noticed that she was moving when the distance from the ground beneath her started getting greater. Looking up towards the other asteroids that were floating nearby, she locked her gaze on RBM 45, and started calculating the time it would take for the ship to reach the mouth of the tunnel, then the time it would take to run its course to the mining facility.

  Standish had programmed an approach to the entrance of the tunnel that she thought offered the best options for cover from the line of sight from within the shaft, and the best chance to build up speed for her run. Looking around her environment, she took a moment to marvel at the asteroids of different sizes and colours. Most were dull grey, but others appeared rust coloured, one was even dark green. All floating lifelessly in space. Many shrouded in permanent darkness, living in the shadows of the multitude of rocks floating about.

  In the distance, Standish could see several of the worlds that made up the uninhabited AB 79 system. There was something serene about the silence, or lack of activity that made the system somewhat unique. The closest world was a giant ball covered in green and grey clouds that swirled around the planet in a continuous motion. And while Standish knew that the conditions on the surface might be quite harsh, from her position atop of the freighter, it looked rather peaceful.

  Unfortunately, there was no time for her to drink in the wondrous sights that the system had to offer, she had to go to work, and it was going to be heavy work. Getting to her feet, Standish moved to the rear of the ship, the position she wanted to be in when she planned to execute her plan. There was a phrase she had heard once that was critical to her achieving her plan: in confusion, there is opportunity. And her plan relied on a great deal of confusion, and possibly a little chaos.

  When she reached the rear of the ship, just a few metres before it dropped off over the engine housing, Standish turned around and knelt down. Her rifle cradled in her hands, it was now a question of waiting for the auto-pilot to pick up speed, and commence its run into the tunnel. Flipping through her heads-up display, Standish could tell that the ship was already gaining momentum, the numbers on the helmets motion sensors able to accurately track her velocity.

  The ship maintained a constant speed as it raced towards the mouth of the tunnel, and as she got closer to the cave, she tightened her grip on her weapon. The mouth of the tunnel was a full two kilometres across, and from the outside, it looked like a black hole that had no bottom. She knew that wasn’t true, but it wasn’t an attractive picture.

  The angle that Standish had chosen required a short braking period while the ship turned into the mouth, followed by a rapid acceleration into the cave, and as the nose of the vessel crested the mouth of the cave, Standish watched as the front of the ship was engulfed in darkness. Switching her optical suite, Standish was able to get a clear image of the mine all the way to the bottom of the shaft once the ship had straightened itself. The Floxian ship was clearly visible as the old freighter she was riding started to accelerate downwards.

  As the sides of the tunnel started to race by in a blur, fire from the long-ship began to come up to meet the old Darjk freighter. It was expected, but what shocked Standish was how accurate it was, and after the first few blasts of charge energy zoomed by the ship, the next burst caught the nose straight on, but by that point it didn’t matter, physics had taken over, and the ship was going to reach the bottom of the shaft in a fiery wreckage unless it was vaporized, and the long-ships rail-guns just didn’t have enough fire-power for that.

  The battering the ship was taking was causing it to shake violently, and not wanting to push her luck, Standish executed the second phase of her assault: getting off the freighter. Springing up from her crouched position, Standish kicked herself up and away from the freighter, aiding her ascent with a quick squirt of air from her suits legs.

  Floating up and away from the doomed freighter gave Standish a good view of the docks at the mining centre, where she was able to see one of the three shuttles that had deployed with the strike team. A second shuttle was floating one hundred metres to her front, riddled with holes, and when she reached it, she found it empty.

  Holding on to the destroyed shuttle, Standish watched as the long-ship continued to fire at the now flaming Darjk freighter right up to the moment the ship slammed into the nose of the vessel. The freighter sheared off part of the front of the long-ship, then slowly settled on its back on the top of the mining facility, fire and air being vented from several places along the hull. Standish wasn’t sure if Systa K had survived the brutal damage done to the ship, but she knew that the move had been her only real option.

&nb
sp; Moving her gaze towards the long-ship, she zoomed in using her optics suite, and could see no activity on the hull of the ship, nor could she see what was happening inside the mine’s loading docks. Letting go of the disabled shuttle, Standish checked her distance to the long-ship, and released a spray of air from her suit, and started her approach to the unknown vessel.

  As she started to close the distance to the bottom of the tunnel, Standish began to reconsider her options. Her original plan was to gain access to the mine, find her team, then make an assessment, now she was giving serious consideration to gaining access to the long-ship first, and then attacking outwards from there. That option might present challenges, but it also allowed her to disrupt whatever activity was going on at the source of the threat.

  At a range of one hundred metres, Standish was on a smooth course to the top of the long-ship, and she was already scanning for a way in. Bringing up her rifle, she prepared herself to meet a contact of some form, but as she got closer and closer to the ship, none were presented. Even the two top-mounted cannons that had wrecked the freighter didn’t seem interested in engaging her.

  At fifty meters, she tucked herself into a ball, with her feet facing the ship, her head facing the direction of travel, her rifle also pointing in the same direction. At twenty metres she slowed herself down more, and at ten metres she stopped, floating in the air just above the unidentified ship. Keeping herself in a ball, Standish scanned the hull, looking for any pressure plates or motion sensors, but the length of the hull was smooth to the eye, and even her HUDs systems couldn’t pick up anything out of place or a threat.

  Happy with what she was looking at, Standish continued the rest of the way to the hull, putting her feet down, gently, she got a mag-lock, took up a kneeling position, then quickly swept the front and rear of the hull with her rifle, checking for any threats. There were none.

  Staying hunched over, as to present the smallest target possible, Standish started moving forwards until she reached an exterior hatch that was almost in the middle of the ship. She quickly scanned the hull to her rear and front again, and once she was sure that the coast was clear, she knelt down and looked at the access pad next to the hatch. It was encoded, as she expected, and without hesitating, she pulled a micro-fibre cable out of her data-pad and attached it to the facing of the access pad. It didn’t take long for the AI in the datapad to crack the access codes, and the hatch opened slowly, revealing a red light-soaked chamber.